Zusammenfassung

Research in the social sciences is often concerned with collecting data from people. Almost inevitably this raises questions about the way in which people who provide data should be treated by researchers, and such questions are often ethical in nature. The research community is becoming increasingly more sophisticated in the manner in which it considers such ethical issues, and there appears to be a growing concern with the ethical dimension of planning and implementing research. This book tries to explore such issues as they occur throughout the research process. It is intended to be of use to higher education students in education and the social sciences, who are conducting a research project. It is hoped that it will be of particular help to postgraduate students with their theses, and also as a resource for lecturers. The book includes a number of fictional ‘ethical dilemmas’ and ‘ethical dialogues’ to indicate the contextual nature of ethical issues. In addition, a range of theoretical perspectives are integrated with the text, in order to explore how these may illuminate ethical problems in research.